GIAN DOMENICO SOZZI | perlepie
about.
STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI is proud to present perlepie, the sixth solo exhibition of work by Gian Domenico Sozzi at the gallery.
The pieces on show – all produced this year, and many on display for the first time – constitute a series of silk-screen prints on mirrors, which the artist has created using old paintings that have fallen into decay.
Sozzi’s practice is characterised by intimate and personal memory; by the rediscovery and re-evaluation of fragments of the everyday; and in his hands their existence, ignored or forgotten, ultimately acquires new meaning.
The artist’s relationship with the Studio Miscetti has deep roots that date back to the 1990s. As early as 1992, Sozzi presented a series of original photographs and sculptures, which formed the basis of tête à tête. In 1996, the artist–actor was both architect and subject of a multiform portrait in cielospettacolo, whose play of black-and-white images brought together a collage of environmental proportions. Meanwhile, for anatra muta (2000) and so it goes (2008), he breathed new life into found objects which he stored, kept safe, and then unveiled. Finally, in 2009 he played a central role in a special edition of the annual SHE DEVIL exhibition with his video piece Brava (2006).
perlepie came out of a chance intuition on the unexpressed potential of long-forgotten canvasses. Following this epiphany/revelation, Sozzi decided to seek out these pictures in the store rooms of museums; before pushing them to interact with the mirror’s mutable, reflective nature through the use of silk-screen printing.
With this approach, he imbues new light into the faces and details of time-worn and damaged paintings. The depth of the mirror and the black ink underline the paintings’ violated nature, emphasising the tears and folds in the canvas, as if to celebrate the material’s very frailty.
Some of the works from the perlepie series featured in a solo exhibition held at the artist-run CLER space in Milan last spring.
Milan, Friday 4 March 2022
The sun, most abundant up here in the tower, casts its shadows everywhere: between the bookshelves, on the sofas, on the walls and windowpanes – but also on that extremely frayed canvas over there. For years it has been sat, along with its saintly bodies, next to the worktable, waiting to be restored or perhaps rolled up to go into the attic – or worse still, left to expire in a cloud of dust, vanishing like a dandelion’s head. But one day the sun lit up a pair of little daisies at the base of that canvas – daisies which the Virgin nearly trampled all over – and it is from the reddish hues of those countryside gems that the pious were born. That’s how the search for works forgotten in museum stores began – forgotten because they were in pieces, torn, peeling, or had occasionally been stitched with new faces – but always left in darkness. And so, flirting with dust and its radical opacity, I decided to give them the chance of a future: dressing them up in a funeral cloak, forcing their images into the depths of a mirror until they became pictures in exile, shy walk-on parts, and in some cases epiphanies. First, it was the details: a flower, a hand, a cherub’s wing, a lamb’s hoof, the foot of a bearded saint, a young shepherd, or a flying face (perhaps taken from another canvas). Then I scraped together images that verged on nothing: a portrait of a woman on a broken panel whom they say is from Brina; a gentleman by Ridolfo or his workshop; a pope copied from Capodimonte; a young man in a striped doublet scratched by Boltraffio’s cat; and that broodingly handsome figure with the luscious lips, for whom they say there is no index card, only a number – though not an unlucky one at that: on the contrary, it keeps renewing itself, like the moon.”
Gian Domenico Sozzi
Read and download the exhibition’s press release.
artist.
Born in Castello di Solaro in 1960, Gian Domenico Sozzi studied art at DAMS in Bologna. In 1983, he moved to Florence where he began working in Luciano Bartolini’s studio and where, in 1985, he held his first solo exhibition at Galleria Schema. Since then he moved first to Berlin and then to New York where he created the Mar d‘Africa cycle of works that he exhibited in Paris at the Montenay Gallery and in Munich at the Thomas Gallery. In 1992, at STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI in Rome, he inaugurated r–Idolini, sculptures and photographs as witnesses to an operation on known and unknown heads, which he also presented the following year at Studio Casoli in Milan. In 1996, he returned to STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI with cielospettacolo, a work that saw him “marry” twelve célibataires and which he presented the following year at the Montenay Gallery in Paris and in the Milanese space of A&M Bookstore. In 2000, again at STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI, he presented anatra muta: a series of monochrome papers visible on the back of a purpose-built wall/iconostasis at the back of the gallery. In 2002, at Studio De Carlo in Milan, he exhibited large-format photographic prints as Testimoni di un anonimo prender tempo. In 2006, at Galleria Zero in Milan, he presented the Brava video (found footage) for the first time, which was later shown in Berlin at the Isabella Bortolozzi Gallery, at the Fesch Museum in Ajaccio and at the Galleria Civica Montevergini in Siracusa. In 2008, he returned to STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI in Rome with so it goes and the following year he realised a site-specific installation entitled Red Carpet at Galleria Francesco Pantaleone in Palermo. In 2012, invited as a special guest at Mars in Milan, he presented Bella Ciao and in 2017 with Pretious he realised his first solo exhibition at Studio Dabbeni in Lugano. In 2018, on the occasion of the exhibition dedicated to Gaudenzio Ferrari, he presented a video dedicated to the Piedmontese artist’s last work at Casa Testori. In 2020, he participates with Fatima in the group exhibition Come prima, meglio di prima at Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milan.
For a more complete artist profile, see the artist page.
more exhibitions.
more exhibitions by GIAN DOMENICO SOZZI with STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI.
BABIES ARE KNOCKING
group show
may 27th, 2021 - october 2, 2021
BUON DOMANI - A BETTER TOMORROW
group show
december 9th, 2010 - january 29th, 2011
GIAN DOMENICO SOZZI
SHE DEVIL: brava - special edition for christmas
december 17th, 2009 - january 16th, 2010
GIAN DOMENICO SOZZI
so it goes
november 37th, 2009 - january 17th, 2009
GIAN DOMENICO SOZZI
anatra muta
may 11th - june, 2000
ANABLEPS
group show
march 9th - april 28th, 2000
GIAN DOMENICO SOZZI
cielospettacolo
january 26th - february 24th, 1996
PALLE
group show
december 10th, 1993 - january 1994
GIAN DOMENICO SOZZI
tête à tête
november 5th - december 5th, 1992
CURRICULUM OF GIAN DOMENICO SOZZI
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2018
Gaudenzio, Casa Testori, Novate (MI)
2017
Pretious, Studio Dabbeni, Lugano
2012
Bella Ciao, MARS, Milan
2009
Brava, STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI, Rome
Whispers, Francesco Pantaleone Arte Contemporanea, Palermo
2008
So it goes, Studio Stefania Miscetti, Roma
BRAVA, a cura di Rita Selvaggio, Furini Arte Contemporanea, Arezzo
2007
BRAVA, Canal at Peer, London; Galleria Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlino; Musée Fesch, Aiaccio; Galleria Civica Montevergini, Siracusa
2006
BRAVA, Galleria Zero, Milan
2002
prendo tempo, Studio De Carlo, Milan
2000
Anatra muta, STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI, Rome
1997
A&M Bookstore, Milan
Galleria Montenay-Giroux, Parigi
1996
cielospettacolo, STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI, Rome
1993
Studio Casoli, Milan
1992
Tète-à-Tète, STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI, Rome
1989
Galleria Thomas, Monaco
1987
Galleria G7, Bologna
1985
Galleria Schema, Firenze
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2009
Nun, a cura di Marco Tagliaferro, Otto Zoo, Milan
2008
Off the deep end, a cura di Paolo Gonzato, Short Show # 0, Milan
L’Angelo sigillato, a cura di Rita Selvaggio, Museo di Icone Russe “F.Bigazzi”, Peccioli (PI)
Falling from an apple tree by mistake, a cura di Rita Selvaggio, Wilde Gallery, Berlin
Ad’A, a cura di Roberto Daolio, Rocca Sforzesca, Imola
Chroma, a cura di Marco Tagliafierro, Sala dell’Arengo, Palazzo del Broletto, Novara
Left Overs, a cura di Luca Cerizza – Jennifer Chert, Micamoca Berlin, Berlin
2007
Vado fuori all’aperto, curated by Carmengloria Morales, Vetriolo (VT)
2006
The Three Cities, a cura di Gyonata Bonvicini, Anna-Catharina Gebbers e Paolo Zani, ex Fabbrica Presbitero, Milano
2005
(In)visibile (in)corporeo, a cura di Pierluigi Tazzi, MAN, Nuoro
2004
Per amore, a cura di Salvatore Lacagnina, Galleria Civica Montevergini, Siracusa
2003
Sulla strada, a cura di Gino Gianuizzi, Castel San Pietro, Bologna
1998
Disidentico, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, Palazzo Abatellis, Palermo
Subway, a cura di Roberto Pinto, Metropolitana Stazione Duomo, Milan
1997
Decomposizione, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, S.Michele a Ripa, Rome
1994
Dislocazioni dell’arte, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, Galleria Civica d’Arte Contemporanea, Termoli (CB)
1991
Terra Terra, curated by Francesca Alfano Miglietti, Bottega dei Vasai, Milan
1990
Italia ‘90: Ipotesi Arte Giovane, Fabbrica del Vapore, Milan
Musica da camera, a cura di Bruno Bandini e Martina Corgnati, Loggetta Lombardesca, Ravenna
1989
Per un museo, curated by Bruno Bandini, Loggetta Lombardesca, Ravenna
1988
Duetti d’artista, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, Studio Ghiglione, Genova
Bartolini, Desjardin, Sozzi, Galleria Montenay, Parigi
Under 35, Arte Fiera 88, Bologna
1987
Alta tensione, a cura di Francesca Alfano Miglietti, Palazzo delle mostre, Alba
Europa-America, a cura di Achille Bonito Oliva, ex Birreria Peroni, Rome
Equinozio d’autunno, a cura di Francesca Alfano Miglietti, Castello di Rivara, Rivara (To)
Il Passo dell’acrobata, a cura di Silvana Sinisi, Auditorium S.Giovanni di Dio, Salerno
1986
XI Quadriennale Nazionale d’Arte, Palazzo dei Congressi, Rome
Mandelzoom, curated by Antonio D’Avossa, Biblioteca Comunale, Marta (Vt)
Italiana 1950-1986, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, Madrid, Barcellona, Santiago de Compostela e Valencia (ES)
1985
Desideretur, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, Palazzo della Ragione, Bergamo